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It was frenetic, right up to and well beyond the point of grade-school kickball. Both teams put more passes into the stands than the T-shirt cannon.

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It was also ugly — fun ugly. But ugly.

It was ugly in a smiling pig sort of way in the first half, when the Wizards were doing most of the scrambling and the Raptors were building up a 13-point halftime lead. It was ugly in an open sore sort of way in the third quarter, when Washington lapped Toronto, clawing back the disadvantage and taking their own lead.

It was back to a jolielaide feel in the fourth, as Toronto applied pressure and Washington — completely lacking a second unit — began popping hubcaps at high speed.

The flavour of the evening was best captured by hulking Washington centre Marcin Gortat when he took hold of a bath-sized towel on the bench and frustratedly tore it in half. Good teams do something graceful out on the court. Toronto and Washington were professionally wrestling.

It ended 96-88. Toronto is now 6-7. They didn’t win their sixth game last season until mid-December. Wherever you think they stand in the NBA’s grand scheme, this is progress.

As you read this, the Raptors will have spent nearly 72 glorious hours in first place in the Atlantic Division. That’s 72 more hours than they’d sat on top in the last six years. If the playoffs started today, Toronto finishes fourth in the conference and plays Atlanta, with at least some chance of advancing.

Former Knick Steve Novak: “Having been there, I can imagine what it’s like. (Meaningful pause) I’m happy to be a Raptor right now.”

Putting the screws to two of the five boroughs (and the two most obnoxious)? We’ll take that right now.

In big-picture terms, winning is its own rationale. There is no interfering with a winner.

Beginning to disassemble this team right now is an impossibility. Though one knows — knows pretty close to factually — that Brooklyn and New York will get a lot better, you have to ride this out.

That’s where things get really hard.

In order to fully commit to this team going forward, there has to be some reasonable expectation that the winning is sustainable. The Raptors haven’t gotten anywhere close to that yet.

Over on the opposing bench, the rationale for giving up and going the other way was apparent in the person of John Wall.

Wall is not yet close to being the league’s best point guard, but he is an electric presence. Casey said early in the day that it was “not humanly possible” to stop him one-on-one in transition. Then Wall went out and proved it.

In the third quarter, he outscored the Raptors 18-15 — nearly every point activated by his incredible speed and court-sense. At one point, in a gesture of tacit surrender, Novak moved over to guard him. If you can’t stop him, the Raptors seemed to say, don’t bother wasting a good defender on him.

Wall finished the game with 37 points on 71 per cent shooting.

Toronto would give anything for a John Wall (or Wall’s backcourt complement, Bradley Beal). Any amount of money or bodies or temporary humiliation. They aren’t going to get that sort of player by winning.

Here’s where GM Masai Ujiri must make Solomon’s choice — offering to cut his baby in half, but hoping they make the decision for him.

Right now, they are finding a rough sort of groove. For the second game in a row (and the second game of the season), the Raptors had more than 20 team assists. The scoring was spread evenly through the starting lineup — no one more than 17, no one less than 11. When it was still tight at the end, Rudy Gay added to his closer bonafides by scoring the last nine points of the contest.

The Raptors are getting better — and not just slowly. They’ve really flowered in the past week or so.

There’s a key yardstick game against the Nets looming on Tuesday.

For now and as long as it lasts, being good is what this team and its fans want.

The question remains — and will begin to torture them as we tick over into December — is being good what this team needs?

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